The Complete Metropolis

'The complete Metropolis' - Film.

As most of you know, I am a film lover. And I'd just like to share with you some of my thoughts, and recent experiences of my all-time favourite film.

Oh, and as usual pardon the normal 'typecast' typos and mistakes. 

One of the most iconic robots of cinema. This Art Deco design has influenced hundreds of works since. 

'The New Tower Of Babel'. Much of the film takes inspiration from biblical tales, which unfortunately ended up seeing it cut ferociously by American censors. Much of it remained in the final film, but several key scenes had been stripped. 

For a 1927 silent film, the setting was incredible and took inspiration from New York for its impressive models used in 'above ground city'. 

One big revelation of the complete metropolis: The statues holding Maria up are the 7 deadly sins. 

Expressionist Art Deco style - eat your heart out... 

Rotwang's motivations are clearer, as he seeks revenge for the death of the woman he loved.

The 'Pater Noster' machine, which later turns into a 'Moloch' that workers are sacrificed into. 

P.s.

If you are new to this film, track down the Georgio Moroder version from the 80's. While it is incomplete, it is the easiest to watch with its colourisation and 80's soundtrack that features some great musicians - including Freddy Mercury and Adam Ant. 

Sex, Ikea and Typewriters.

To small to read? Click to enlarge.
Oh, and pardon the spelling monstrosities. What was I thinking!?

Ep2: The apocalypse of the typosphere.

The pages are now split in two, so that Blogger will display them better. You can click to enlarge for a better view. 

For the catch up - Episode 1.

ITI mail: Michael Yulo

It took a little while, but I excitingly got a letter from the International Typewriter Initiative.

I find people's life stories fascinating - and Michael from 'Typewriter a day keeps the doctor away' seems to have had a somewhat interesting life. He's only briefly touched on it in this email, but I reckon he's got a lot of fascinating tales to tell.

I've asked Michael if it is alright to post up his letter, and he seemed more than happy for me to do so. I hope you enjoy Michael's lovely introductory letter.

As usual, click letters to enlarge the scans.  

Thanks a heap Michael! And a letter in reply is already on its way back to you. 

I wonder who I'll hear from next.... 

Ep1. The apocalypse of the typosphere: A machine at the end of the world.

Click to enlarge scans. 

Why I don't smoke

Lettera 22, and Lettera 32

I'll be talking a little more about these two typewriters sometime in the near future, but right now I want to talk about my most recent attempt at dunking typewriters. You may recall that I successfully attempted a dunking on a Hermes 3000 70's model a little while ago. Since then I have dunked a few more typers with mostly positive outcomes. Until today. Here's a moment I'd like to share with you. 

Okay kids, hop in the bath and play nicely... 

L22, What's that..... is that..... OH NO! 

God no! no! NO!........ Stop!.... STOOOOOOP!

(BOOM......)

Damn. I hate it when the kids poo in the bath. 

The lettera 22 was in remarkably good condition when I bought it on eBay. The case was excellent for the age of the machine, and the paint had no wear. All the metal parts still gleamed as though they were  new. For a machine that is approaching 50 years old, I thought I had scored. 

I'd seen these machines before, and when I saw it on ebay - lonely and with no bids (they had spelled typewriter wrong) I threw an offer in, and was surprise to have won the auction. The machine LOOKED in excellent condition in the photos. 

When It arrived, I looked over it an was mostly pleased. But it seemed a little off colour from the version of this machine I had seem previously. The green didn't quite pop out as nicely, but the paint still looked unworn, with the exception of a very light scratch - which would probably 'buff out'. 

Never mind, I thought as I gave it a bit of a tap on the keys. This is when I discovered that a handful of the typebars were a little lazy. A sign that there was some dirt, oil or something else in the segment. I thought about just trying to work the segment clean, until I also noticed what seemed to be thin film of ink smudged down the side of the typewriter. 

I was going to dunk a Lettera 32, so I decided I would just put the Lettera 22 into the bath with it, and just let the hot and soapy water shift a bit of the residual junk. Neither machine seemed particularly dirty, and I was pretty confident I wouldn't be transferring dirt from one to the other. 

The first hint I had of there being something wrong was the smell. I knew the smell, and I couldn't quite place it at first. As the water level raised in the bath, I also noticed something else: a pool of  black residue at the bottom of the segment. 

The pool grew a little, but kind of just kind of drifted around in the water. 

But then the pool became a rapid squirt or material rising from the bottom, and the Lettera 22 filled with an oily black/brown murk. I knew any second now it would overflow from the L22, and I reached in and snatched out the L32 to save it. 

As the body of water shifted with the removal of the L32, the L22's black oil dispersed across the bath with almost impossible speed. It practically exploded its supply of filth into the water and I was now left with tub filled with an oily brown muck. It was like an octopus had defensively shoot its ink. 

I quickly turned off the tap, and in a moments peace memories related to the smell came back to me. Both of my parents had been heavy smokers once, and the smell of nicotine often soaked into everything. Also, in my younger student years, I had often rented dumpy old houses - many of which had walls toned brown by nicotine stains from the previous heavy smoking occupants. I still have the trauma of trying to wash that oil off the walls. 

The Lettera 22 has several patches of noise reduction foam or felt. The inky black squirt was a result of those patches releasing the load of nicotine that had been stored in them. The nicotine had come out due to the flood of hot and soapy water that was now invading into the felt - loosening up the oil. 

The moment the hot water hit the paint on the Lettera, it transformed the colour of the machine. A thin layer of nicotine had coated the machine perfectly, and this layer now dissolved rapidly into the hot and soapy water that splashed over it. You can see the residue in the photos above - where it sits in a ring around the soap suds. 

Ultimately the patients responded well to treatment. I flushed both of the machines with hot hot water straight from my shower, and managed to move most of the slick from the L22. I ended up having to shift a bit more with some wipes and cotton buds later on. 

The bath however, was horrendous. It took me over an hour to scrub clean. I was soaked thick with oil on my skin, and I felt 'chilled'. I wasn't exactly stressed, or even in a hurry to get myself clean. I would have expected the nicotine particles to have oxidised and degraded over time, but I guess there was enough fresh material for it to soak in to my skin somehow. *Future note - wear long gloves when dealing with old typewriters. 

Both machines now work perfectly, and I'll be posting about them soon. I've seen a fair bit of discussion on the forums about the L32/L22 differences, and it is nice to have both machines side by side to have a good go at both. 

*   *   *

Just a quick but ernest note (smokers, you might want to turn away for a moment). 

I used to work in a children's oncology ward where I learned to cope with the personal difficulties that come from watching children potentially dying every day. I was often witness to families breaking down while others only held together with increasingly strained strands of hope. We did our best for the children and families, and in 40% of cases, it wasn't enough for the children. 

The links between smoking and cancer are not just theoretical, they are real. My father is still alive and stopped smoking 20 years ago. 2 years ago he was diagnosed with emphysema. The muck that came out of this typewriter really highlighted the pervasive and damaging level of the materials that you consume from smoking. And it really drives home the poor outcomes that come from cancer. As much as I love the romantic notion of a room filled with smoke, with the ashtray over-flowing while the writer pounds at the keyboard of this Lettera 22 creating a masterpiece - I just can't move myself away from the grief that is caused by cancer. A cancer that most believe that they are unlikely to ever suffer, until they have it. 

Sorry to bring down the tone. I promise I'll end the next post much more light heartedly. 

Politics and fixing the Bijou

Some names below have been changed to protect the person's identity. 

Correction: *made in a way.

Last night I sat down and decided to try out a few ideas I had to fix a couple of the problems with the Bijou that Robert gave me. I fell in love with the type action of this machine the moment that I laid my hands on the keyboard, and I really wanted to get this typewriter fully working.

It turned out to be easier than I thought. And just as well, as while I was trying to work on the Bijou yesterday, a bit of an online drama was unrolling around me.

It all started yesterday afternoon. I arrived home from work and flicked my computer on to check my email and have a bit of a look at what light-hearted waffle had been posted on Facebook throughout the day. I run a program on my computer called 'Social fixer' and I was immediately confronted by a long list of Facebook 'Friends' who had had their profiles shut down. I also noticed that all of these friends were people that I known from a political activism group I had helped out some time back.

Something was wrong. I popped into a couple of private Facebook groups and left some messages to see if anyone knew what happened to these people's Facebook profiles. Usually those groups are  full of lively discussion, but today they were eerily quiet. I was to learn later that not everyone's profiles had been shut down, but most of the people that I had tried to contact had had their profiles banned from being able to post in public areas, and on other people's 'walls'.

Eventually I would figure out had happened, and how it had happened. But right now I wasn't involved in the group of people it had happened to, so my profile had remained unaffected.

My friend Mitch's profile had been shut down. Mitch was currently living in Vietnam, and had now been there for over 2 years. As such,  Facebook remained his primary means of keeping in contact with the rest of the world and his social circle.


I stopped short of calling people to get the gritty what had happened, as I realised that this was something that I didn't want or need to get involved in. But I did have some real concerns about those that were.

*   *   *

This Bijou 5 is a wholly remarkable machine. Beautiful to look at and amazing to type on, this machine also has historical charm. It has keys that were devoted to marking out a Palestinian currency that hasn't been in use for over 50 years. 

But like all machines of the age of this Bijou, you can't avoid there being some problems. This Bijou had a couple, but nothing that wasn't insurmountable. Instead, I took the opportunity to try out some ideas that I'd had for a while, and had been looking for a candidate to try them on. 

The biggest problem with the Bijou was the platen and the rollers. The platen itself wasn't cracked - but it was rather hard and plasticised. The rollers however were still rubbery, but were suffering from probably the worst example of a flat-spot that I have ever seen. 

The platen was easy to deal with. I now had an opportunity to try out how well brake fluid works on the rubber of these platens, and much to my surprise, it actually worked quite well. I painted it onto the platen and left it for about an hour. after I washed it off the surface felt rubbery again, even if I really couldn't tell by pushing on it if it was any less hard. I scuffed the surface with a bit of rough sandpaper, and the platen looked and felt ready for business. That grey rubber tone had returned to the platen again. 

But there still was the problem with the rollers. I had put the platen back in, but the rollers still locked onto the paper every few lines, and refused to budge. Naturally, this was far from ideal. 

Realistically, the Platen and the rollers would be better of being recovered. But there was nothing wrong with trying a couple of things on them first. As the brake fluid had been so successful, thought I would try another experiment on the rollers. 

I'd been reading up on how to re-shape rubber after their shapes had been formed. A lot of people had been using heat on rubber parts to manipulate them into place. So I thought about it for a bit, and came up with an idea that I could try out on these rubber rollers. 

The technique was simple. A lot of people had been dropping their rubber pieces into a pot of boiling water. But I didn't feel that I needed to so much cook the rollers, as much as I needed to heat them. So I boiled the kettle, and dropped the rollers individually into a container that I then filled with boiling water. Doing it this way, the temperature was probably going to be 10-20 degrees lower - helping  retain the consistency of the rubber while I put it under stress. 

Getting the roller ready

From there rest of this was pretty straight forward. After letting the roller heat up for a bit, I used tongs to grab it out of of the water and place it onto a clean, flat and smooth surface. I then simply rolled each piece of rubber one at a time under a metal ruler - in order to try and push the roller back into a rounded shape. Much like how you make long and round pieces with clay. 

I wouldn't say it was a complete success. The flat spots didn't completely disappear, but they certainly rounded out a bit. Another interesting effect was that a very thin layer of rubber on the surface wore off. It was microns thick, and didn't really change the width of the rollers, but the rubber underneath was less plasticised than this thin surface layer. I cooled the rollers under cold water and sanded them down to get rid of the last of that surface layer. 

I'm in two minds about this surface layer. I'm not sure if I have opened up a seal that was originally on the roller, or I have simply removed a heavily oxidised and hardened top layer. 

*   *   *

I was re-assembling the Bijou when I heard the message tone on my phone. I didn't recognise the number, but it turned out to be Mitch. I hadn't spoken to Mitch outside of emails for pretty much the entire time he'd been in Vietnam, and it was a surprise to find he wanted to catch up on Skype ASAP. 

It was 10:15pm by this stage, but I still had about 20 minutes of of work left on the Bijou to go, so I agreed. Seconds later my iPad was buzzing with a voice call. I answered and listened to him on the speaker, while I continued to re-assemble the Bijou. 

"Heeeeeeeeeeeeey"! Mitch called out as I answered. He was clearly happy to be talking to me. 

"What's going on with your facebook profile" I asked.... 

Mitch is an eccentric but very intelligent man. He's a teacher who is very compassionate. Last we spoke a few years ago, he had learned and was fluent in 6 languages - and was hoping to make it to 8 quite soon. He's also very passionate about civil liberties and the rights of gays. 

He is also more camp than a row of tents, and so loaded with hormones that it is impossible to have a simple conversation with him, before it turns into a festival of innuendo. 

Indeed, I don't think there's a single subject matter in existence that Mitch couldn't turn into some kind of sexual euphemism. And a such, a conversation with him is always very entertaining. Within minutes of answering his call, I was almost in tears I was laughing so hard. My laughter was often met with Mitch loudly squealing 'Whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaat'! before he qualified it with 'I can't help it'! 

I started to find it hard to work on the Bijou. I was trying to wrangle the platen back into place, and had made 4 attempts at it before I pleaded with Mitch; "Stop it! Stop it! I can't concentrate on what I'm doing". 

"What are you doing" he enquired. 

"I'm trying to get the Platen back in". 

There was silence for a moment, before Mitch snappily asked "What's a platen". 

I thought about my answer for a moment and considered about how I would describe it to Mitch. 

The platen in my hand was a long and round object that was hard and coated in rubber. 

.......

"It's a thing" I replied in answer to his question. 

"A THING"? 

"Yep, a THING". 

"Riiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiight" Mitch replied with scepticism. On the other hand, I felt I had dodged the bullet of the week. 

I managed to get the platen back into place, and everything bolted back down. Mitch and I talked for a little while longer, and I eventually discerned what had happened to everyone's Facebook profiles. Mitch had managed to get his account reinstated, but had been handed the same posting ban that I now suspected had been handed out to a fairly sizeable group of people. 

I won't detail here the how, why and wherefores of what had actually happened, as I had started this blog to largely get away from such activities. I gave Mitch a few contact numbers of people that could help him, and sent him on his way. He's a lovely guy, and a great friend, and I have a lot of time for him. But on this occasion there was a whole group of men and women I knew who had suddenly found themselves a little more restricted in their online social and political options, and honestly... I didn't want to get involved. 

Everything was quiet now, and despite all the laughter I had managed to get the Bijou back together again with little of a hitch. 

I can report that my wrangling with the rubber on the rollers had been successful. It wasn't perfect, but the Bijou now stopped locking the paper down and fed each sheet of paper through about as straight as anyone could want. I may not have been able to save the world, but I saved a Bijou. And to me that counts for a lot.

Shame though, if I had have been able to save the world, I might have been able to pick up some gorgeous Hollywood blond woman and live happily every after. That stuff happens, right? I've seen it in movies.

P.s. Incidentally, this is my 50th post. Thanks for being a great bunch of readers and typers! You're awesome.